curity and the Transportation Security Administration are here to stay.

2. Kim Jong-Il Died. The death of a communist tyrant gives us an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of communism, which promises a workers' paradise but delivers famine and slaughter. Here's R.J. Rummel's website detailing the handiwork of 20th century "mortacracies." Here's my review of Eugene Richter's Pictures of the Socialistic Future, which predicted a lot of what came to pass in the twentieth century.

3. Muammar Gaddafi Was Killed. 2011 was a bad year for terrorists and tyrants. Gaddafi's death was one of the most iconic moments in a year that caused Time magazine to name "The Protester" as its "Person of the Year."

3. Vaclav Havel Died.In this discussion, The Guardian's Neil Clark called Havel "the symbol of 1989, the anti-communist playwright who helped free his country-and the rest of eastern Europe-from Stalinist tyranny and who put the countries that lay behind the iron curtain on the road to democracy." Clark then goes on to criticize Havel's legacy. If you're an economist or a friend of liberty and you are wondering why what you do is important, consider that someone can, with apparent seriousness, write a phrase like "communism, for all its faults, was still a system which put the economic needs of the majority first."

4. Christopher Hitchens Died. I am insufficiently acquainted with his oeuvre to write a decent eulogy or obituary. This Vanity Fair piece in which he describes his waterboarding experience is, in my mind, a standout contribution that encourages a serious moral conversation about what is being done in the name of Americans everywhere.

5. Steve Jobs Died. Steve Jobs was one of the faces of the modern world. He left behind a company that has helped revolutionize the way we communicate, and in an object lesson on popular and political disdain for the social processes that have produced modern luxury, Jesse Jackson, Jr. "thanked" him in April by claiming that the iPad is "eliminating thousands of American jobs." As much as anyone, Jobs was emblematic of a set of social institutions and processes that helped to create the modern world. As I explain here, we are very fortunate that the incentives and institutions were such that Jobs was able to fulfill his potential by developing newer and better consumers' goods rather than war machines or newer and more convoluted ways to get wealthy through the use of force. He unveiled the iPad on the day that Barack Obama gave the State of the Union Address in 2010. I wrote then that his speech was the more important of the two. I stand by that.

6. Panic on the Streets of London, Birmingham, New York, Memphis, Los Angeles... The Occupy movement began on Wall Street as members of the disaffected "99%" expressed their dissatisfaction with modern American capitalism. As I have written several times, they are right to be upset. However, they should be very careful what they wish for. The simple-but-popular story of democracy hijacked by special interests is a tad lacking, and redistribution per se will not accomplish the Occupier's goals of a more just and equal world. I'm sympathetic to the Occupiers' frustration with incentives and institutions that are rigged for the benefit of powerful special interests, but "smashing capitalism" isn't the answer. The UC-Davis incident that outraged many was not an "abuse" of power. It was what happens when power is centralized.